Markel Corporation is to wind down Bermuda-based Lodgepine Capital Management Limited, the company’s retrocessional insurance-linked securities fund manager.

The company said that it has entered into a consultation period with Lodgepine's 18 employees and will look for redeployment opportunities for them within Markel's operations.

Markel launched Lodgepine in 2019 with product offerings focused on property catastrophe retrocessional investments.

In 2021, Lodgepine wrote a portfolio of property retrocessional business that consisted of approximately $230 million of initial limits.

The Lodgepine Fund wa launched on July 1 with initial investor capital of $98.9 million, including an initial investment by Markel of $18.9 million.

Despite best efforts and in light of headwinds in the retrocessional ILS market, including a challenging fundraising environment, Markel said, Lodgepine will cease to write any new business and commence the orderly run-off of its existing portfolio and the return of capital to investors.